New Theme – SYWTT 2009

I have been working together with developers at Dizzain.com to create a brand new, professionall designed) theme for So You Want To Teach? We are just about finished and plan on launching it sometime in the first week of March. I’d like to take this opportunity to ask you, my loyal readers, to leave your email or RSS reader, go to the website (www.soyouwantotteach.com) and let me know some of the things you really love about the current theme. Write about them in the comments.

Also, if there are things you don’t like about the current theme, let me know as well. All suggestions will be taken into consideration. I like it when you tell me honestly what you don’t like.

BONUS for those of you following me on twitter, (@sywtt), go check out the new design and tweet me some feedback.

Joel Wagner (@sywtt) began teaching band in 2002. Though he had a lot of information, his classes were out of control. He found himself tired, frustrated, disrespected by students, lonely, and on the brink of quitting.
He had had enough. He resigned from his school district right before spring break of his second year and made it his personal mission to learn to be a great teacher. So You Want To Teach? is the ongoing story of that quest for educational excellence.

Joel, I liked all your colors in the current theme and the way you made your blog/site name your logo at the top. But…after going over to twitter to look at your new theme….that’s better…very peaceful, which is probably what you want to induce in your target audience. Easier to find stuff w/all the tabs. I had a hard time locating your archive in this theme when I was looking for a link a commenter had left. Have you considered whether to swap out your header pic seasonally? I’m lovin’ it now that spring is so close, but when it’s fall/winter holidays…looking at green grass & a book on a perfect sunny day will just depress me because it’d be soooooooo faaaaaaaaarrrrrrr away. (that’s truly minor, but honest):-)

Margaret, I hadn’t really thought about the header too much, but I like your idea of changing it from time to time. I also will miss the extreme colors in my current (2008) theme, but I think some of the things you mentioned (easier navigation, more content above the fold, etc.) will probably be a good trade off. Thanks for the pointers!

Joel – beautiful design! Nice and smooth, GREAT color coordination. Tabs are awesome, and I like the ‘top post’ widget. Excellent organization!

The only suggestion I might make is increasing the width of the main body and perhaps narrowing the sidebars a bit. It makes longer paragraphs not seem as long. (Though you can avoid issues by using more paragraph breaks!) I dunno, maybe I’m still too used to books ;D

Thanks for the comments, guys. I initially thought the same thing about the narrowness of the center column. Then as I began to look at my old theme, I realized that I used a larger font and had space between characters. It really doesn’t make paragraphs seem any longer the way that it is now.

Plus, I tend to write pretty short paragraphs all in all. So, I’ll stick with it like it is now and see what I think about it when spring break rolls around next week. :)